Ventana, Spanish for “window,” comes from the Latin ventus, for “wind.” From the same root, we get the English… dum dum dum… ventilation. Vent and vent: both push back against the wind!

Maroon (in the sense of “being stranded”) comes from an old Spanish word cimárron (via French) which used to mean “wild”. Although this original Spanish word is no longer in use, it comes from cima meaning “summit (such as of a mountain)” — which is still a common word. Wild animals, after all, stayed at the tops of the mountains since humans encroached from the bottom.

The -m- (finishing up cima and starting maroon) is the only surviving commonality between both words today.

Disheveled — as in, having messy hair! — comes from the same Latin root as the Spanish cabello, meaning “hair” or “a head of hair.” Both of these come from the Latin capillus, meaning hair.

We can see the pattern more clearly if we remember the dis- prefix at the beginning of disheveled: thus the (d)-sh-v-l of disheveled maps to the c-p-ll of capello.

Also from the same Latin root capillus, we get the English capillary. A capillary, after all, looks just like a thin strand of hair.

Acabar — the everyday Spanish word meaning “just”, “finish”, and, wait for it “to ejaculate” (don’t ask how I learned the last definition!) — comes from the Latin caput, meaning “head”.

Thus, it has a parallel in the English expression: to bring to a head. Although that phrase doesn’t exactly mean to finish (it means, to force a decision to be made, basically), it is a similar concept: bringing about a totality that finishes or just about finishes something that had been happening.

Thus, etymology proves the common-sense wisdom that it’s easy to start something… but it requires real intelligence, a head, to finish what you start.

País (Spanish for “country”) comes from the Latin pagus meaning “countryside”. From that same root, we also get the English… pagan.

Funny how belief in traditional gods was a feature of people living far from the cities… even back then. The more things change, the more they remain the same!

Only the initial p– sound has been retained in both.

Afinar, meaning “to tune” — as in, you tune your guitar — comes from the Latin finis, meaning, “border”: tuning a guitar is really finding the exact border between this note and the other one.

From the same Latin root finis, we get English words such as fine, refine (remember the re– prefix is just an intensifier), as well as the English finish.

Tuning your guitar, in other words, really is an act of refining the sounds.

The f-n root is clearly visible in all.